A three-game winning streak would have many teams amped up, overconfident or cocky. Not the women’s soccer team, as they showed up hungry for a win on Saturday, September 10 against the UW-River Falls Falcons. The Pipers dictated play most of the game, beginning the game with a  scoring opportunity. Hamline would continue to storm through the offensive end, creating further scoring chances throughout the first ten minutes. Finally, sophomore forward Arendje Louter was able to find the back of the net at the 16:25 mark.

Not long after Louter’s goal, junior midfielder Teylen Sheesley had the hot foot, scoring at 23:15 for a 2-0 Hamline lead. The last goal of the half would be from junior midfielder Mallory Wirth, pushing the lead to 3-0.

The second half was just as dominant as the first for the Pipers. First-year forward Kaley Roberts scored both of Hamline’s goals, the first one off of a breakaway. While the Falcons managed to tally a solo mark near the end of the game, the Pipers walked away with a 5-1 victory thanks to clean, physical play and a level of intensity not consistently seen in previous years.

The women’s soccer team ended their 2015 season with an overall record of 5-11-1. At the start of their 2016 season, they are already looking at a 5-1 record and are thanking their pre-season preparation and mix of talent for their success so far.

“I think some key differences from last year to why we are doing so much better this year is the way we prepared for the season. We took our off-season training really seriously, did a lot of fitness,” said senior defender Grace Nichols. “We’re in a lot better shape, and we had a lot of young girls come in and really step up right away, so that’s been exciting to see,” said Nichols.

Head coach Ted Zingman believes the team’s success can not only be attributed to preparation, but to the abundance of talent on the team.

“I feel like the big difference is we have a lot of balance this year,” Coach Zingman said. “Last year gave us a lot of experience, and we have a lot of returning players from last year’s team who have that balance of experience and also some really exciting newcomers. When we have talented young players joining our team and they come and join an experienced group of players, you can breed success from that.”

While the Pipers shined in their 10-1 victory against UW-Superior, the second and third games of the season were much closer. The Pipers beat the University of Minnesota-Morris 2-0 and snuck past the University of Wisconsin-Stout 1-0. The team realizes they need to stay hungry as they progress into conference play.

“It feels great to win, and I think we played a really solid game today,” said Nichols. “We came off a 1-0 win on Wednesday at Stout, and I think we kind of realized that wasn’t our best performance and we need to be playing more to our own strengths,” she said.

Coach Zingman is looking for the girls to keep the momentum going into their conference schedule.

“We look at our season one game at a time, so our goal today was to dominate play for a full 90 minutes, and I feel like we accomplished that goal. Now we’re moving on to conference play. It’s an opportunity for us to prove that we can play this well against our conference rivals,”said Zingman.

After their victory over River Falls, the Pipers went on the road and defeated Concordia 3-0 on Wednesday, September 14 before returning home to their first loss of the season, a 1-3 defeat to MIAC foe St. Kate’s. Moving forward, Nichols is looking for her team to finish with a winning record.

“Of course we want to make playoffs. If we finish with a winning record we should land ourselves in the top six to make playoffs,” said Nichols. “That’s something that our program has never been able to do and I think we have the right tools to be able to get ourselves there this year.”

The Pipers return to action on Friday, September 23 as they head to Macalester. Kick-off is at 4:30 p.m.